Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i Airgun Shooter

ENHANCE your SHOOTING AirForceOne’s Hush Puppy and Get Shorty airgun moderators were always good, but have now been made even better with the introduction of their respective Mkll versions. The first-generation moderators, which were fitted with the industry-standard female ½in UNF threads, were launched in 2014. The new 2023 models have upgraded internals, improving sound suppression even further. According to distributor The Shooting Party, the Hush Puppy Mkll version is seriously quiet at under 65 dbA (A-weighted decibels), while the more compact Get Shorty model comes in at only 67 dbA. Both moderators are constructed from matt black, hard-anodised 30mm diameter aluminium tube, and as such are rust-proof and scratchresistant. The exit hole is 7mm, allowing the moderators to be used with .177, .22 and .25 calibre airguns. The Hush…

ZEROING IN NEWS AND MORE ENHANCE your SHOOTING TALKING SHOP Credit where it’s due. If you read The Barn Door, you might remember that I’ve mentioned Emmett & Stone a few times over the years. There’s a good reason for this. All four of the airguns I’ve purchased since returning to the sport in 2019 were bought there. It’s the place I run to when I’m in an airgunning panic - when I’ve broken something for example, or that time when a cheap chrono told me my gun was over the legal limit. It’s a place I know I can expect calm and knowledgeable assistance, and where the staff greet me by name when I walk in. It’s the only shop in the world where I get that. I stumbled across Emmett…

ENHANCE YOUR SHOOTING These days, the vast majority of my hunting involves tackling grey squirrels on large castle and manor house estates. This can be seen as pest control, but as I am based in the Lake District, it is also serious red squirrel conservation work. Success at bringing the numbers of grey squirrels down, and indeed removing them from woodlands altogether, can be had - but only with sustained pressure throughout the year and annual dedication to the task. In my opinion, the most effective method for making a serious impact on grey squirrel numbers is a feeder-based approach. Stalking can also be effective as a complementary method. However, there are limitations with both. For example, grey squirrels show little interest in feeders in late summer, and this will…

TARGET SHOOTER CHRISTMAS CHEER Well, there goes yet another year! It is indeed true that the older you get, the faster the time seems to travel and in no time at all we are back around to Christmas and all the festivities and merriment - if you are that way inclined. If you are an angry old man like me and that creation of Charles Dickens, a certain Mr Ebenezer Scrooge, the festive season is not always full of laughter and fun as it appears to be for many. Last year in particular was proving a challenge for many, and I felt sorry for those younger families who had to find the necessary funds for paying Santa his present money. I remember it well myself. That time of year is all…

ENHANCE your SHOOTING KEY SPECS SUPPLIED BY: Highland Outdoors (highlandoutdoors.co.uk) MANUFACTURER: Effecto Airguns MODEL: PX-5 PRICE: £741.99 WARRANTY: One year TYPE: Pre-charged pneumatic ACTION: Bolt-action, magazine-fed, regulated LENGTH: 110cm WEIGHT: 3.5kg FILL PRESSURE: 240 bar SHOTS PER FILL: 177-150, 22-240 MAGAZINE CAPACITY: .177-12, .22-10 ACCESSORIES INCLUDED: Two magazines, single-shot tray, Allen keys, spare O-rings Having been away from the industry, I’ve missed out on all the new releases, so I’m having fun catching up on what’s come along. I had never heard of Effecto airguns, which are made by the huge Turkish gunmaker Huglu. This company has been making shotguns and firearms for over 100 years, and it’s decided to venture into the airgun market, so I was keen to see its version of the modern pre-charged pneumatic in the…

ZEROING IN GUN CLUB Brook Valley Target Sports, located in East Cheshire, just a few minutes off J16 of the M6, is a club that hopes to bring air rifle shooting in general and Field Target in particular to as many people as possible. Nestled alongside the plentiful fishing lakes of Walnut Tree Fisheries, this new club is looking to attract established air rifle shooters while also actively encouraging newcomers to this extremely enjoyable and addictive sport. A lot of work has gone into getting the club ready to welcome new members, including plenty of hard graft, organisation and many hours of planning. However, with the assistance of some well-known names on the Field Target circuit, it’s now pretty much ready to open its doors and is looking for new members…

TECH FOCUS FEATURE PCP ANATOMY ENHANCE your SHOOTING “THE PISTOL GRIP HAS BECOME AN ACCEPTED FEATURE ON MOST MODERN STOCKS”…

VINTAGE AIRGUNS FEATURE GUN RESTORATION Last time I described the Haenel M28 and its famous inventor Hugo Schmeisser, and looked at the pros and cons of its design, plus its competitors. This time, however, I’m looking at the rectification work that was necessary on the successor to my first M28. Sometime after regretfully parting company with that mint-condition Haenel M28, I spotted another for sale online. I bought it, having only seen a couple of photos and recognising that it was a little rough around the edges. On arrival, I discovered that it was complete, if a little rusty, that the barrel pointed slightly upwards, and that the head of the barrel pivot keeper screw had sheared off. It also had a mainspring that was far too strong, but only produced…

ENHANCE your SHOOTING I’m often asked to give my recommendation for the best air rifle to people who are shopping for a hunting gun and I always tell them to buy a mid-weight, sporting pre-charged pneumatic (PCP). Why sporting? The answer is simple. They’re not perfect for any one thing, but they’re very good for everything. A welldesigned sporter will do well standing, sitting, prone, kneeling and all those weird, contorted positions we end up assuming in the real world of hunting. Target guns can be adjusted to be perfect for one position, but are then terrible for everything else! Just such a gun is the Daystate Huntsman, a model that has been in production for decades and has been offered in many versions over the years, but at its…

TESTING STATION PELLETTEST EXACT PREMIUM DIABOLO .177 ENHANCE your SHOOTING It may be tempting to look back with rose-tinted glasses at the airguns, scopes and other shooting paraphernalia of yesteryear, but I firmly believe that in terms of airgun ammunition we’ve never had it so good. Pellet quality, at least from the major manufacturers, really is first-rate, with some of the very best in the world coming from JSB. But if you really want the ultimate, then JSB has gone one step further with the Exact Premium Diabolo. These pellets are available in .177 and are sold in a plastic box of 200. The box has a proper hinged lid, and the pellets are nestled within two trays made of polystyrene, each containing 100 projectiles. It can be hard to grab an individual…

ENHANCE your SHOOTING BSA Guns is proud to announce that the production of its spring-piston rifles is finally returning to its spiritual home back in Britain - Birmingham! I’d heard some interesting whispers around the industry, and one day recently my contact at BSA’s Birmingham factory tipped me the nod, so I knew it was true. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m delighted to announce that starting with the Meteor Super you see here, BSA’s springers will be made in Blighty again. Please look at the photo of the top of the cylinder and read the words ‘Meteor Super. Made in Birmingham, England’. That fills my heart with pride. We need more engineering at home, and knowing that eventually all the BSA springers will be made here is a happy moment for…

EXPERT TIP IT’S MUCH EASIER, as well as kinder on the threads, to attach a moderator with the muzzle pointing upwards. This means the barrel can take the weight of the moderator while you screw it on more evenly. One further tip that’s especially useful for metal-to-metal threads like these is to gently turn the moderator anti-clockwise until you feel and/or hear it go click, indicating the barrel and moderator threads are correctly aligned. You can then reverse direction and screw the moderator on clockwise as normal.…

FREE TO ENTER WIN! WORTH £230 Professional Airgun Optics has an extensive line-up of telescopic sights, and that line-up has now grown with the arrival of the new SSS series, one of which, the PAO 6-24×56 SSS, is our competition prize for this issue and offers two types of scope technology. SSS stands for Smart Spherical Structure, which is an all-metal turret/erector tube interface mechanism. This, according to PAO, allows for far more precise windage and elevation adjustments than the metal-rubber interface found in some other scopes, the idea here being the more precise the adjustment, the more accurate the shot. The SSS series also employs a second type of technology called Thin Scope Shell (TSS), which is intended to improve the shooter’s field of view by reducing the perceived…

SHOOTING ADVICE FEATURE TECHNIQUE ENHANCE YOUR SHOOTING A shooting rest can be useful for testing a pistol, as well as for long-range plinking. However, it is more of a crutch for any other form of handgun shooting. Back in the day, the only shooting rests in our old pistol club were those for sitting on. In order to improve with a pistol, what’s really needed is to get some solid shooting experience under the belt at shorter, more realistic target distances. Practising with anything is better than not practising at all, but a pellet-firing air pistol is best. Despite being a collector of BB guns, with the best will in the world, most of these cannot come close to the performance of a pellet pistol for more serious shooting. More important…

AIRGUN SHOOTER PRESENTS TARGET SHOOTER EQUIPMENT INSIGHT AND EXPERTISE TO HELP YOU RAISE YOUR GAME YOUR EXPERT ANDY McLACHLAN Regular readers will be aware that I now spend most, if not all, of my shooting time parked at an indoor range shooting at relatively long-range targets - certainly for a sub-12 ft-lb air rifle, anyway. The vast majority of benchrest competition surrounds the 25-yard placement of the specifically designed cards, and the shooter’s attempt to achieve the perfect 250/25 × score. This is where the shooter manages to completely obliterate the 2mm bull on each target, which is easier said than done, believe me. I know of very few shooters who have managed this level of performance when shooting an actual competition card, as it is even harder to do when…

THE GUN ROOM Around 15,000 Acvoke pistols were made between 1946 and 1956, representing the second venture into the manufacture of air pistols for Birmingham-based Accles and Shelvoke Ltd, following the Warrior that was made from 1931 to 1939. Accles & Shelvoke was better known for its pioneering development of slaughterhouse captive-bolt pistols, which revolutionised the stunning and humane dispatch of farm animals. Such devices are still in production and widely employed to this day. The Acvoke is essentially a scaled-up version of the diminutive pre-World War II German Tell 2. To cock the pistol, the grip strap was pulled down to provide leverage, and this motion continued onward while the shooter’s other hand restrained the muzzle end of the cylinder from above. This action caused the trigger guard forward…